SHEMA: BLESSING AND REMEMBRANCE · 2 OF 2
Remembering the Exodus at night
Our memory of redemption belongs in daily life. Follow two readings of “all the days of your life,” and learn to hear each teacher’s contribution without confusing their words.
In this lesson
The memory we carry
The Exodus is Hashem’s bringing our people out of slavery in Egypt. Hashem means “the Name,” our reverent way of referring to God. Remembering his redemption helps shape how we understand our life and service now.
The Shema, “Hear,” is our morning and evening recitation of three passages from the Torah, the five books of Moshe (Moses). The third passage ends by recalling the Exodus. After studying the surrounding blessings, we turn to a question about this remembrance at night.
The Mishnah gathers our sages’ teachings. Berakhot, “Blessings,” is its first tractate, or named book. Our reference, Berakhot 1:5, means chapter 1, mishnah 5. This is the chapter’s final teaching. Keep a page ready for two columns: Who says it? and Which words support it?
1. Read the verse in its setting
Deuteronomy 16 discusses Pesach, Passover, the festival remembering the Exodus. Verse 3 speaks about the Passover offering mentioned just before it. Matzot are unleavened bread, the plural of matzah; “affliction” means hardship.
You shall not eat leavened bread with it. For seven days you shall eat matzot with it, bread of affliction, because you came out of the land of Egypt in haste, so that you remember the day you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
The Mishnah will focus on the verse’s closing words. Read this clause within the full verse above:
לְמַעַן תִּזְכֹּר אֶת-יוֹם צֵאתְךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם,
כֹּל יְמֵי חַיֶּיךָ.So that you remember the day you came out of the land of Egypt,
all the days of your life.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
1. Which words give the festival setting, and which extend remembrance across life?
The offering, matzot and seven days belong to the Passover setting. “All the days of your life” extends the verse’s remembrance language across life.
The sages will interpret that last phrase for daily remembrance. We should neither detach it from its festival context nor assume that the whole verse is only an instruction about a prayer service.
2. Keep the voices distinct
Read the complete mishnah in the next three cards before sorting the speakers. Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah means Rabbi Elazar, son of Azariah. He is not Rabbi Eliezer from the earlier timing discussion. Ben Zoma is another sage. To interpret a verse here is to explain how its words support a teaching.
מזכירין יציאת מצריים בלילות.
אמר רבי אלעזר בן עזריה, הרי אני כבן שבעים שנה,
ולא זכיתי שתיאמר יציאת מצריים בלילות,
עד שדרשה בן זומא:We mention the Exodus from Egypt at night.
Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah said: I am like a man of seventy,
yet I had not succeeded in establishing that the Exodus from Egypt should be mentioned at night
until Ben Zoma interpreted it:
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva; “had not succeeded in establishing” follows the explanation below
Rabbi Ovadiah of Bartenura, a later Mishnah commentator, explains this expression as not having prevailed in the discussion with the sages. The English follows that explanation. It is not a confession that Rabbi Elazar had forgotten the Exodus.
שנאמר "למען תזכור את יום צאתך מארץ מצריים, כול ימי חייך"--
"ימי חייך", הימים;
"כול ימי חייך", הלילות.As it is said, “So that you remember the day you came out of the land of Egypt, all the days of your life.”
“The days of your life”: the days.
“All the days of your life”: the nights.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
The next reading contrasts this world, our present age, with the messianic days: the hoped-for era of redemption associated with Mashiach, the Messiah. The contrast here is present and future, not simply earth and heaven.
וחכמים אומרים, "ימי חייך", העולם הזה;
"כול ימי חייך", להביא את ימות המשיח.The sages say: “The days of your life”: this world.
“All the days of your life”: to include the messianic days.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
Make four entries in your speaker column: opening teaching; Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah; Ben Zoma; the sages. Give each a different job in the passage.
2. Who states, reports and interprets?
- The unnamed opening states nighttime remembrance.
- Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah reports his experience and credits another sage’s interpretation.
- Ben Zoma interprets the verse to include nights.
- The sages interpret its expanded wording to include the messianic days.
Rabbi Elazar’s report introduces Ben Zoma’s teaching; it does not make them the same speaker. The phrase “the sages say” then marks the alternative reading.
Notice the small word “like” in “like a man of seventy.” Bartenura explains that Rabbi Elazar appeared old. The Mishnah itself does not supply his actual age.
3. Repair: “Rabbi Eliezer turned seventy and finally remembered Egypt.”
The speaker is Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, not Rabbi Eliezer. He says “like” a man of seventy, not that this is his seventieth birthday. His statement concerns establishing nighttime remembrance through interpretation, not finally recovering a forgotten historical fact.
A careful replacement is: “Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah describes himself as like a man of seventy and credits Ben Zoma’s interpretation in the discussion of nighttime remembrance.”
3. Follow what “all” adds
A worked reading: Ben Zoma
Ben Zoma distinguishes the base expression “the days of your life” from the expanded expression “all the days of your life.” He reads the first as days. The added word “all” brings nights within the remembrance as well.
Write the chain in your own words: base expression → added word → what is included. This makes the reasoning visible rather than merely attaching “night” to a name.
4. Does Ben Zoma replace daytime remembrance with nighttime remembrance?
No. Days are already represented by “the days of your life.” The expanded expression includes nights as well. The move is an inclusion, not a replacement.
“Ben Zoma notices ‘all’ and includes nights alongside days” explains both the textual feature and the conclusion.
Now construct the sages’ reading
Return to part 3 without opening the check. Use the same three steps, but do not borrow Ben Zoma’s answer. What does the base expression name? What does “all” bring within the remembrance?
5. What changes when the sages interpret the same added word?
For the sages, “the days of your life” names this world, the present age. “All the days of your life” includes the messianic days.
The same expanded wording now reaches across present and future, rather than day and night. A strong explanation preserves both similarities and differences: the added word is the same; the scope it adds is different.
Compare two notes: “Both interpretations say exactly the same thing.” “The sages explicitly say that mentioning the Exodus at night is forbidden.” Which wording in the Mishnah would each claim need?
6. Why does neither note accurately report the passage?
The first erases the different expansions: nights in Ben Zoma’s reading and messianic days in the sages’ reading. The second adds a prohibition that this Mishnah does not state. The sages give a different interpretation of “all”; they do not print a separate instruction here banning nighttime remembrance.
Report the disagreement at the level the text supplies: “They use the expanded wording to include different scopes.” Further practical conclusions require further sources.
Test the reading in later sources
A code’s explicit statement
Rambam, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, organizes Jewish law in his code, the Mishneh Torah. In Laws of Shema 1:3, he explains that the third Shema passage is read at night because it mentions the Exodus. That Torah passage, Numbers 15:37–41, discusses commanded garment fringes and ends with Hashem’s bringing us out of Egypt. Rambam then states:
ומצוה להזכיר יציאת מצריים ביום ובלילה,
שנאמר "למען תזכור את יום צאתך מארץ מצריים, כול ימי חייך".It is a commandment to mention the Exodus from Egypt by day and by night,
as it is said, “So that you remember the day you came out of the land of Egypt, all the days of your life.”
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
7. Which earlier interpretation helps explain the code’s day-and-night statement?
Ben Zoma’s: the expanded “all the days of your life” includes nights alongside days. Rambam quotes the same verse and states the day-and-night obligation directly.
The code also connects that remembrance to the third Shema passage. This is an additional source explaining our practice, not evidence that the Mishnah’s named voices should all be rewritten as a single statement.
Does future redemption erase the earlier memory?
The Gemara discusses the Mishnah and other teachings; together Mishnah and Gemara form the Talmud. In the Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 12b, the Gemara quotes a baraita, an early teaching preserved outside the Mishnah. It continues the exchange: Ben Zoma challenges remembrance of the Exodus in the messianic days, and the sages reply:
לא שתעקר יציאת מצרים ממקומה
Not that the Exodus from Egypt will be uprooted from its place.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
They go on to distinguish emphasis: deliverance from domination by kingdoms will become central, while the Exodus from Egypt remains in a secondary place. The reply explains continuing memory, not the abandonment of our earlier redemption.
8. What does this continuation add, and where does it belong?
It explains how the sages’ future extension can preserve the Exodus even when a later redemption becomes central. “Not… uprooted” blocks the claim that the earlier memory is erased.
This is a baraita quoted in the Gemara, not another sentence in Mishnah 1:5. It adds an explanation of the sages’ view; it does not supply a date for the messianic days.
Build your own explanation
A learner asks: “Who discovered the night reading? What do the sages do with the same verse? Does the future make the Exodus irrelevant?” Write a short reply using the Mishnah and one later source. Include the speaker, the words being interpreted and the conclusion each time.
9. Compare with a worked reply and revise.
“Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah reports the discussion and credits Ben Zoma. Ben Zoma reads ‘the days of your life’ as days and uses ‘all the days of your life’ to include nights. The sages use the same expanded wording for a different scope: remembrance in the present age and in the messianic days. Their continuing reply in the baraita quoted on Berakhot 12b says the Exodus is not uprooted; a later redemption becomes central without erasing it.”
Revise your answer if it merges Rabbi Elazar with Ben Zoma, turns “like seventy” into an exact age, makes the two readings identical, or labels the baraita a Mishnah paragraph. If you used Rambam instead, explain his explicit day-and-night statement and keep its source label.
In your siddur, the Jewish prayer book, locate the Exodus reference at the end of the third Shema passage. If the boundaries are unclear, ask a knowledgeable rabbi or teacher to show you that passage and the blessing that follows. Bring your before/after map from the previous lesson.
Read the sources in context
Deuteronomy 16:1–8: the Passover setting. Mishnah Berakhot 1:5: the complete Hebrew witness, labeled א,ט [ה]. Bartenura on 1:5: the separately labeled commentary explains “like seventy” and “I had not succeeded.” Rambam, Laws of Shema 1:3: the third passage and day/night remembrance. Berakhot 12b: the continuing exchange; 12b means folio 12, second side.
Practice keeping each kind of source distinct in the Shema source workshop.